Appliciousness

The funk has lifted, this time, and, I’ve gotten that project done, mostly to my satisfaction, so I’m feeling pretty alright. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me through with your words. I know I haven’t responded back to all of you yet, as I’ve been neck deep in this thing, but I hope you know how appreciated you all are.

It was apple picking time this weekend! Along with a gaggle of other people. It’s funny, last year when we went, we were the only people in the orchard. This year, it was packed! Although, we made the jaunt earlier in the season this year, and it was considerably less frigid than last year. It was a pretty nice weekend for apple picking, so I guess I can understand why everyone else wanted to go too.

It was still a blast, though, if a little less peaceful. We traipsed through the apple trees (I just love the word traipsed, don’t you?), filling up our 20lb bag with MacIntosh, and nibbling on a few other varieties to see if we wanted to take them home as well.

I wanted to take my self portrait at the orchard, since it was the most interesting place I went all day. I didn’t bring the tripod, though, so some creative camera positioning was in order. First, we attempted to balance the camera on an apple tree branch, but that was definitely not going to happen. Then we figured a way to hang it from a branch, with the lens slung in the curve of the neckstrap to support it. Genius! I just wish I’d brought the other camera to take a picture of our jury-rig.

Now I need to get peeling before these apples start fermenting!

Funk

Oh, the trials of being a creative. Creative funk, why do you do this to me? I am blocked. Like writer’s block, only of the visual variety. Nothing seems to get in or get out right now, and it is such an inconvenient time for it, with a rather large and important to my psyche project deadline looming next Wednesday. Flumph! is the sound my brain makes.

Julia provided some advice yesterday that I found rather apt, when she said that creativity is not like a faucet, that can be turned on or off. But it always comes back. This is so so true. But it is so so frustrating when you sort of NEED it to come back soon so that you can get your stuff done on time and in some semblance that you can feel proud of.

I’m not sure how this happened, but at some point the notion of having my design chosen for the portfolio announcement became very important for me. So much so, that I think it is now almost betraying me. It’s become this thing, so big in my mind, that I’ve built a wall between it and myself. It’s infuriating. I need to be ok with the fact that I may not be the one that gets it. I may not. It’s really hard for me, though.

All this to say, this is but a small part of why I am so stressed out right now. I knew this class would be a challenge, but everyday I am surprised at just how challenging it really is. Today, though, I am feeling a bit lighter. I’m doing my best to look at lots of type and imagery to try to get inspired. And I’m not feeling quite as overwhelmed as I was feeling on, say, Wednesday. Things are looking up, I think.

A pretty interesting meme from Leslie

This is sorta similar to something I did this week for portfolio class, and since I’m sleep deprived and losing my shit all over the place, this seems good for today.

I AM … a handmade girl
I WANT … to be succssful and valued, to spend my workday making things, rather than with numbers, and my evenings with my husband, rather than with more work
I HAVE … ends that need to be woven in to a finished pair of mittens and a scarf
I KEEP … knitting in my bag wherever I go, I love how portable it is and it can take my mind off of things for a few minutes
I WISH I COULD … do it all. I pretend I can.
I HATE … when businesspeople use the words “leverage” and “synergy”
I FEAR … that I will never find what I’m looking for
I HEAR … the sound of waves crashing on the shores of an ocean, in my minds ear
I DON’T THINK … I ever feel prepared
I REGRET … not taking a glass class in undergrad, especially that year that I lived across the street from the lab
I LOVE … when The Husband holds Lucy up to my face for kitten purr therapy.
I AM NOT … enthused about being stood up yesterday evening
I DANCE … like a goofy turkey in my kitchen sometimes
I SING … along with Dave to Bartender from 8/19/08, especially the screaming parts
I NEVER … have run a 10K race. Maybe this year?
I REALLY … really want to be a professional designer. Soon.
I CRY WHEN I WATCH … DMB play Stay or Leave, everytime
I AM NOT ALWAYS … as together as I let on
I HATE THAT … I’m in a creative block right now, with so much pressure on this current project
I AM CONFUSED ABOUT … oh, lots of stuff
I NEED … more time, and less pressure
I SHOULD … remember to be gentle with myself, and take some relax time this weekend

Idea from Leslie.

Play along if you wish, and if you do, let me know, I’d love to see what you are thinking!

Roughing it?

My back aches, my hips are sore, and my legs and feet are tired. That means it was a good weekend. This weekend marks the first time I have been backwoods camping. And I liked it.

Now, my family never went camping when I was a kid, like so many other peoples’ families. There was no sleeping on the ground, not even in a camper, no tent pitching, no campfires. So it’s taken me quite awhile to really warm up to the camping experience. I don’t like bugs. Or dirt, really. I grew up a tomboy, but I’ve become quite a chick post-college.

My first camping experience was in a borrowed tent in the rain. It was a wet night of no sleep. It’s gotten measurably better since then, though. We got a dry tent, for one thing. The Husband proposed to me on one camping trip. (He’s a TOTAL camper) There was that time that we almost died in a crazy storm, though, which happened to be the same day we got engaged. We’ve done a bunch of group camping, with marshmallow roasting and beer drinking and cameraderie. We’ve camped out of the car in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks, as well as Peninsula State Park in Door County when we wanted an extra day up there but there wasn’t a room to be had. The Husband has been on lots of trips to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota, and talks about a trip when he was young hiking through the Smokey Mountains on the Appalachian Trail. I was always wary of backwoods camping, though, hiking in, carrying everything in a pack, no showering. All not appealing to this girl.

We’ve been talking about camping at Newport State Park in Door County in the fall for a few years now. The lure of cool temperatures, fall foliage and camping right on the lake was so appealing. All of the sites are hike in. Some are farther than others, though, and a few are a relatively short hike. It could be a bridge of sorts, between the car camping that we’ve been doing for years and actual backwoods hike-lots-of-miles-to-your-campsite-camping. So this year I decided it should be the year, let’s give it a go. We booked a site for two nights that was only a mile and a half hike in, so not THAT far, all things considered.

We packed in all of our food, way more than we needed in fact, most of it freeze dried camp food. We filtered water out of the lake for cooking and drinking, and we foraged in the woods for firewood. We cooked every meal on our little camp stove, and all we really worried about for 48 hours was when to eat, when to get water, and having a bit of wood for the fire. It was blissful.

We also brought a couple bottles of wine with us. And the camera. And on day two we hiked back to the car to swap an empty for a full bottle. The Husband carried the new big tent into the woods, so that we would have room for the dog. It was a nice tent, roomy. But not real practical for backwoods camping.

I knitted. We fell asleep to the sound of the waves of the lake. I took pictures. We hiked around in the shoals of the receded water line finding frogs and snakes. We drank wine. We roasted a TON of marshmallows on the world’s best roasting stick that I WHITTLED. Yes! We made drip coffee in the mornings, and pancakes, and freeze dried eggs with bacon which weren’t even as horrifying as they sound. Every freeze dried meal we cooked was actually way better than I’d imagined, due to the fact that we were in the woods and we’d carried it in there. We balked at the discovery that it seems freeze dried camp food loses calories in the dehydration process, which totally doesn’t make any sense to me, and this must be researched. We woke up to a few pitter patters of sprinkles on the first morning, and snuggled in our mummy bags on the chilly second morning. It didn’t even bother me that I hadn’t showered in three days. I could have stayed out there at least another night, despite the achy hips and back from sleeping on the ground. Best of all, I didn’t think about work until we’d gotten halfway home again.

Now I’m ready to try the Boundary Waters.

Meditate.34-37

Week 34 . Meditate Project

Week 35 . Meditate Project

Week 36 . Meditate Project

Week 37 . Meditate Project

I hope you enjoyed catching up as much as I did. Have a happy weekend, friends.

Dodgeball is still cool

I promised design, and hooray, here it is! I did this poster for the Duck & Dodge campaign, a dodgeball tournament held in Madison. The project had a pretty short turnaround, so I employed a simply built graphic based on the figure in their existing logo, with a wonky crop on some emanating circles from the ball.

Summer Was…

Farmer’s Markets. It always is. I love the Farmer’s Market here, up on the capitol square. We go early, to try to avoid the worst of the crowd, because it gets crowded. We buy most of our produce there in the summer, and the guy that sells croissants has gotten to know me a little bit this year. We have our favorite vendors for corn, sweet peas, herbs, plants, garlic, honey, heirloom tomatoes. Oh, I love the tomato guy. He had some extra time to chat last weekend as it was rainy and slow, and he told me all of the names of his tomatoes, many of which I harvested seeds from before they went into the oven to roast and eventually into tomato and garlic soup. He’s so nice.

Molly is hosting a series this week, looking back, thinking back on her summer, what summer was, and I’m joining her. What was your summer?

Progress

The yellow quilt is actually coming along here and there, even though I haven’t spoken of it in weeks. I worked on a couple of squares and then had a long hiatus, then last night I picked back up in a need to do something without consequence or planning, and finished a couple more squares. It felt so good to just sew, press, cut, pin, sew, press. I had a few things that I should have been doing, but I let myself sew anyhow.

I’ve been going print crazy on them it seems. I’m thinking some more solids are in order, perhaps. It’s fun to see them all together in their set, and I’m excited all over again about this quilt. Ah yellow.

You thought I was done with the thoughts?

You guys are wonderful, you know that? Full of wisdom and kindness, the lot of you. Thank you for perking me up a bit.

I took these couple of shots last weekend when we went to watch the Ironman swim. The stranger’s head was an accident, but there’s something I like about it.

Emily posted her wordplay interpretation. Can I just say how much I love it? I do, in so many ways, for so many reasons. go look.

And this is the next wordplay word, from Heather. Gather. I got all goosebumpy when I opened it. I love those pinholes she does, so much.

Thoughts

So, I thought I had a design post coming, but when I went to put it on the internets, I was suddenly not 100% sure I can share the design part, and what is a design post without design? Not much, methinks. So, hopefully I will be advised soon that I can share it, and in the meantime, some random, completely unrelated thoughts:

I’m kind of feeling the love for this pattern right now, but I’ve never sewn a garment in my life and am sort of afraid of it. And who knows how it would actually look on me, assuming I could construct it well enough. But the drawings are super cute.

I am behind on Meditate. Yes. I haven’t been feeling it lately. I don’t want to ditch the project though, I’m more than halfway through. So, I intend to get caught up. Perhaps all in one day.

I am busy. And stressed. This semester is taking a toll, and I’m only 3 weeks in. My class is pretty demanding, and on top of that, I am even more demanding on myself. I don’t talk about it much, but I am pretty competitive, with myself and others. I want to do my best, and be considered the best, and so I put alot of pressure on myself to deliver. I am trying really hard to come up with strong concepts for the portfolio show invitation, because when the announcement gets mailed, I want it to be my design. Every student is working on one, though, and they’ll get voted on by the class and faculty. So I have a hill to climb. Plus, I’m designing two of them. So I am all out of sorts lately, and I don’t see an end to it.

I used to not like tequila very much. If I went out for margaritas with friends, I would only have one, because tequila? It made me think funny. You know how as you get older your tastes change? You start liking weird things like squash and brussels sprouts? Well, a few weeks ago I started liking margaritas. Alot. Now my house is inhabited with an almost gone bottle of tequila (not all me, don’t worry, we had a small party too), a fridge drawer full of limes, and margarita salt. And I bought a lime juicer, which I really should have purchased when I saw it in Le Grande Orange in Scottsdale last month, but back then, I didn’t have this margarita thing going on.

Banana bread makes the house smell good.

If I don’t return to this space with some Meditation tomorrow, I wish you all a fabulous, restful, fallish weekend. With macaroni and cheese. And margaritas.